


you walk the line

by everythingspiteful



Series: no need to breathe [1]
Category: Danny Phantom
Genre: Explanations, Gen, Light Angst, Prequel, What-If, and im an impatient little shit, but I don’t have the first part finished yet, cause i need to post something about it, or a prequel, slightly AU, this is kinda like an explaining fic, yea
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-12-09
Updated: 2017-12-09
Packaged: 2019-02-12 10:34:27
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,638
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12957375
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/everythingspiteful/pseuds/everythingspiteful
Summary: "You've walked the line between life and death, Danny," Sam said with a hoarse voice. "You're not dead, but you're not alive - you're a ghost with the form of a human."ORIn which Danny finds some stuff out about himself.Can also be seen as something I wrote so I don’t have to explain everything in the rest of the series, but also because I’m impatient and really want to post something despite the fact that the first part isn’t finished yet.





	you walk the line

**Author's Note:**

> this is basically a theory posted in the form of a fanfic
> 
> but then again, what au isn’t
> 
> i mean, Butch never actually says what happened to Danny besides “his molecules got all rearranged”
> 
> and if you think about it, molecules are different than DNA. molecules make up your very structure. our molecules make us carbon-based life forms.
> 
> meaning that if Danny has a different arrangement of molecules from before the accident, he is 1)probably not made up of the same stuff humans are, and 2)not even in his own body. 
> 
> but here’s the fic

He was sinking.

Danny moved his arms around in the water, eyes stinging a bit from the chlorine - he hadn’t gone swimming in  _ages_ _-_ but no matter how hard he flailed his limbs around, he couldn’t float.

Sure, he could propel himself upwards. And he most definitely could still _swim_. But it felt like he was dragging himself through cement; something was making him sink, like an anchor was permanently tied to his chest. To his _heart_.

The there was the matter with his lungs. They didn’t hurt. They didn’t grow tired. Actually, Danny had forgotten he was supposed to hold his breath... because he didn’t feel the need to breathe anyway.

 _This is weird_ , he thought as he sat on the pool floor.

He allowed his eyes to close for a moment, smiling a bit at the blissful silence. He couldn’t remember the last time it had been this quiet. As his hair tickled his cheek, floating around in the water, he wondered why he didn’t do this more often.

Then he wondered how long it had been, and if he had won.

As soon as that thought registered, arms grabbed his and pulled him others. He flew upwards with no protest, not even letting lose bubbles as he neared the surface. 

Danny felt cold air reach his face, and he blinked, still confused as to why he hadn’t breathed in yet. He experimentally sucked in some air, but that’s all it felt like: sucking in air.

A hand slapped his bare back, and Danny turned around to see Tucker’s pale, terrified face.

”Danny,” he breathed. “What the fuck, man.”

”Did I win?” Danny asked, clueless as always.

Tuck’s eyes flashed in anger, and he hit Danny’s arm again. “Win?” he demanded. “ _Win_? Dude, I thought you had drowned!” 

Danny frowned and pushed some wet hair back from his face. A little kid splashed some water in their direction, and he shielded his face. “How long was I down there?”

”Four minutes,” Tucker answered. His eyes were still wide as saucers.

Danny’s eyebrows shot up. “Huh,” he said after failing to come up with an appropriate response. “That’s new.”

~~~

Two weeks.

He made it two weeks without breathing.

He could’ve gone on longer, too, if he hadn’t woken up from that nightmare. In the dream, he had been a full ghost, except he was intangible and invisible all of the time. He had no voice, and tried to communicate with his family and friends, but no one knew he was there. 

The worst part? He couldn’t breathe.

So Danny had woken up in a cold sweat, shaking and afraid, checking to see if he was visible and tangible; and he noticed how he hadn’t even gasped _once_ , not when he woke up and felt a horrible pressure in his throat; not when he knew he _had_ to.

Repulsion and fear racked his body, and he sucked in a lungful of air, the first in two weeks. But at the horrible empty feeling in his chest when doing so made a lump rise in his throat, then he was breathing faster - except he wasn’t breathing, only sucking in oxygen that seemed to have no effect on him whatsoever. He began to panic, clutching his chest and rocking back and forth, whimpering and trying desperately to _breathe_.

Danny called Sam and told her he hadn’t been able to take the experiment anymore. It was three o’clock in the morning, but he needed to make sure everyone knew he still existed. Not like in the nightmare.

”Two weeks is still pretty sick,” Tuck said the next day at school.

”I _feel_ sick,” Danny answered, who had been desperately sucking in air all day. “Something’s wrong...”

”We’ll figure it out,” Sam promised and squeezed his shoulder.

~~~

Sam bit her lip and shuffled around awkwardly. This wasn't like her. Normally she just spit everything out, usually in sarcastic, blunt remarks. She didn't try to dance around the point.

But this time was different.

"Danny," she started hesitantly, not looking the boy in his eyes. The boy with the icy blue eyes that seemed to be both cold and hard and soft and warm all at the same time. The boy who had such a hopeful expression that it killed her to say her next words. "I... I think you're not as alive as we thought."

Tucker furrowed his brows. He was leaning against a table in the lab, keeping one eye on the portal in case some nasties decided to show up. "Sam, he's not dead. He still has a body."

"That's the thing..." she groaned, rubbing her temples. "He _has_ a body, and he's obviously not a full ghost. He's still _alive_ , because his brain is still working and he isn't decomposing."

"If you're bringing back the theory that Phantom is my spirit that haunts my corpse," Danny interjected, "I'm going to say right now that that's definitely wrong. Overshadowing someone feels like you're wearing their skin, or, or wrapped around them - I feel like _myself_."

  
"That theory was dropped," Sam said. She groaned again. "Okay. So basically, this is what's happening. When you turned on the portal, you got shocked by thousands of volts of electricity, which almost certainly would have killed you... if it wasn't in a ghost portal with ectoplasm fused into the very metal."

Tucker's eyes widened. "Holy shit."

"Tuck's caught on," Danny said, "but I haven't. What are you talking about?" He wrung his hands, then pressed two fingers underneath his thumb. "There's a _pulse_."

"But it's not a heartbeat," Sam said helplessly.

"I've got it." Tucker's green eyes were shining excitedly. "The accident, it... it _saved_ you. It fused with you, with your very being, and it covered your DNA and organs and turned your heart..."

"It encased your heart, which had stopped beating, and became your core," Sam finished. Danny was staring at her in disbelief. "Your organs are still there, _you're_ still here because that ectoplasm fused with you."

"The ectoplasm created Phantom," Danny realized. "He's not my soul, he's not even _me_ , he's the ectoplasm that came from the lightning and fused with me."

  
"Phantom is a part of you, Danny," Sam continued. "He always will be. But if it this were a normal explosion... you would have died."

A somber silence seemed to befall the group, the words weighing heavy on their minds - then Danny spoke up with a quiet, shaking voice, "But I'm not alive, am I?"

"I've got this, Sam," Tucker said gently to the girl who seemed to be struggling with her words for the first time in forever. "Danny, you breathed at first when you came out of the portal because your body's natural response was to do that, even if you didn't need to. It mimicked... everything. Breathing. Sleeping and eating, too, I'd bet... we should totally try that-"

"Tucker."

"Right, sorry. Anyway, that pulse isn't a heartbeat, it's your core. Where Phantom comes from. You don't have any life energy, but your ghost energy is keeping you alive."

  
"How does that even work?" Danny looked like he was about to hyperventilate, already sucking in air (they didn't use the term _breathing_ anymore), unaware of the fact that wouldn't work. "When we split me apart with the Ghost Catcher, I didn't die."

"Because you split the ghost apart from you, meaning your powers," Tucker elaborated. Granted, these were all theories, but theories could turn out to be correct. "And those powers have the manifestation of Phantom, which is why I'm guessing you can't use as many of your powers as Fenton. But the ectoplasm is fused with your very being, and you can't get rid of that unless you undo the accident. It's like the Gauntlets, too - they ripped your ghost half out, but not your energy."

Danny winced a bit at the mention of the alternate timeline. "Okay... but how can I run on ghost energy without being a full ghost?"

"You've walked the line between life and death, Danny," Sam said with a hoarse voice. "You're not dead, but you're not alive - you're a ghost with the form of a human."

He didn't sleep at all that night; whether it was beause he couldn't or simply didn't have to, Danny didn't want to find out.

~~~

He couldn’t breathe.

He didn’t breathe.

And he hated it.

 _Monster_ , whispered his mind. _Freak. Dead. Ghost_.

Stop it, Danny told himself.

But he still didn’t breathe.

He stopped eating, and lost weight... but he didn’t get as hungry as he would be if he stopped eating for a few days.

 _Weirdo. Dead. You’re dead, Danny, a ghost. A monster_.

He forced himself to eat again after getting tired of looking at his bruised ribs each night.

The ghosts seemed to notice something was off, because they have him a little bit of space (not the Box Ghost, obviously; and Skulker liked his moments of weakness, so he stayed, too) - but kept an eye on him, too. Danny could feel them watching, and whenever they fought, they shot him concerned glances, almost as if they _cared_.

And he still didn’t breathe.

He didn’t breathe when his father offered him fudge. He didn’t breathe when his mother hugged him. He didn’t breathe when he was called on in class, or when he was shoved into a locker; he didn’t breathe, and he hated it.

He didn’t breathe when he lay awake at night, staring at the ceiling, not knowing whether he would die in his sleep because of it. But was he even alive now?

He didn’t breathe as tears slipped down his cheeks, as words floated around in his head.

 _Monster. Freak. Loser. Monster. Weirdo. Monster. Dead. Ghost. Dead. Monster_.

He didn’t breathe because there was no need to.

**Author's Note:**

> hopefully i’ll actually post the fic this weekend
> 
> if you’re wondering, the “winning” thing is the game you play to see who can stay underwater the longest 
> 
> mmm my chemical romance really helps with writers block???
> 
> good night


End file.
